Another Go
by that.stellar.sky
Summary: Eighth Year at Hogwarts means everyone gets another go: the Drs. Granger attend Ministry functions, Malfoy avoids Azkaban by the skin on his teeth, and Hermione returns to a still-in-shambles Hogwarts, where things are going to be a little different this time around. EWE, eventual Dramione, plenty of shenanigans.
1. Prologue: Down Under

**Disclaimer: None of these lovely characters is mine. Neither is the world which they inhabit. It all belongs to the inventive Ms. Rowling, who accordingly makes all the money.**

* * *

Hermione Granger sat on the bow of the midsize sailboat, one leg tucked up under her and the other dangling over the gunwale. She was half watching the waves and half listening to her parents argue affectionately over the proper angle to set the sail at. After three weeks of cruising the Australian coastline with them, she had a vague idea of how to sail a boat, but if it had been any other day, she would have been back in the cockpit trying to learn more.

Today, however, was different. It was her last day down under. Then she was going back to London, and her parents weren't coming with her.

It had taken Hermione by surprise how much they had grown to love Australia in their year there. While she and her boys had been hunting Horcruxes, she'd imagined again and again what it would be like when she finally returned to her parents and restored their memories. She had researched proper techniques of memory restoration whenever she'd had a spare moment, knowing that it was a delicate process that could easily drive them mad.

And when she'd dared to think about what her success might feel like, Hermione had always imagined her parents, a bit dazed and a bit teary, hugging her desperately like she had saved them. Because she would have. Didn't she mean the world to them? Wouldn't remembering her be the greatest gift she could give them?

She had been stupid, and she wasn't afraid to admit it. But it still surprised her.

She had come to them well-dressed in a pin-striped business suit and spouted a story about hypnosis and new identities and protection from war crimes. Her mother hadn't wanted to believe her, but her father had admitted to a touch of confusion about the past and a strange fascination with teeth.

"You were dentists in your past life," she told them with a bit of a laugh, and they had accepted her unspoken cover story. She would not lie to them again, not ever, but if they were willing to assume she was from the Muggle British government until she gave them their memories back, she wasn't going to correct them.

They had had questions about their former life. And she had given them answers. David and Moira Granger. Surrey. Yes, both dentists. Twenty-three years of marriage, she'd kept that the same. No dog ("What were we thinking?" her mother laughed, as a chocolate retriever named Mindy and a little corgi named Kip sprawled across the floor.) A daughter. Eighteen. Hermione.

"Our boat's called _Hermione,"_ David had muttered as Moira shrieked, "We have a daughter?"

And so she had explained, haltingly, carefully, that their daughter had been involved in the war effort (yes, even though she was only eighteen), that she had feared for them and enlisted them in the relocation program without their consent, that she was so so sorry, that the process could be reversed, that they could get their old memories back and still keep their new ones, that Hermione missed them very much.

They had agreed. She had performed the charm. There had been a moment of blankness, and then...

"Hermione, darling!" her mother had said, shock on her face. Abruptly, the corners of her lips had turned down. "Why didn't you write us at all this past year?" A gasp. "What happened? What did you do?"

Hermione had paused mid-hug with her father. "Mum, I was hunting Voldemort with Harry. You remember what I told you? About Voldemort? And how we had to stop him? How he was killing all those non-magic folk too?"

"Of course I remember," her mother had said, a dangerous edge entering her voice. "Of course I do."

From there, there had been a series of arguments, furious ones and then intellectual ones and then teary ones. Her parents didn't think she had the right to take away their memories. They would have preferred that she had told them everything and let them join the battle. She was their daughter, and she should have respected them enough to ask them what they wanted to do. It had been selfish of her to protect them, when they would have died to protect her.

And then, finally, quiet in the Granger household. Mindy had whimpered, nudging Hermione's knee, and the witch had petted her.

"Perhaps I'll just go for a bit then, shall I?" Hermione had said in a crisp, clipped time, turning to collect her bag. It was her beaded one, but she'd transfigured it for the occasion. "Give you a few days to sort things, before we talk further?"

A hand on her wrist. "No you don't, missy!" her father had said. She had turned back, tears in her eyes, to face her tall, proud father. "You don't get to go all British on us and just walk out our door. You're a coward if you do."

Hermione had blinked. "But..."

"Let her go, Jack," her had mother said, and Hermione had been surprised by how much it hurt to hear her call him by his Australian name.

"I won't let her go. If she walks out that door right now, we'll never be a family again."

"I'm not sure I want to be a family again."

Hermione had felt her face go white, and had had to bite her lip to keep from sobbing. _You knew this might happen,_ she had told herself.

"Prove it to us," her father had said, his hand tight around Hermione's wrist, his dark brown eyes solemn. "Prove that you're not a coward. Stay here with us, tell us what happened, remind us why we love you ― no matter how much it hurts. You owe us that."

And Hermione supposed she did.

Some things about her return had been almost seamless. The way she and her parents moved in tandem about a kitchen, she chopping veg, her mother minding the stove, her father doing the washing up. The way they all read in the evening, sharing tidbits over tea. In her company, their laughter and playfulness was gone, but the bones of the routines they had all followed long before she started Hogwarts remained.

It wasn't enough. They couldn't pretend that none of it had ever happened. Trying to made them all quiet and strained, and Hermione sometimes wondered if it would be so awful to be a coward, to leave them to the lives they'd made in her absence.

On the 23rd of June, she received an owl from Harry.

_Dear Mione,_

_How's Australia? I've always wanted to go._

_By popular demand, Kingsley's having a victory ball on July 15th. Think you'll be back by then?_

_I hope everything is going well with your parents. I hope they're not too angry with you, but I imagine it might be a little like when I kept trying to leave you and Ron behind and go off to save the world by my lonesome. And you lot never liked that._

_Miss you loads._

_Love,_

_Harry_

That night, instead of taking out her book, Hermione had told them about the Forest of Dean.

Three days later, they had packed their bags, left Mindy and Kip with a neighbor, and stepped aboard the _Hermione._ It was a relief to be doing something new, something different, to acknowledge everything that had changed. Almost suddenly, the tension had faded.

And then it seemed as though her parents could not stop talking. Returning their old memories had not removed the ones she had created or the ones they had made in the last year, and so they had inexhaustible reserves of stories to tell her.

They rented the little condo they lived in, but they'd bought the boat first. She was their pride and joy, and accordingly, they'd named her the _Hermione._ They had new jobs. Her mother was an opinion columnist for a big newspaper and her father taught people to scuba.

And they loved their lives. Hermione couldn't remember ever seeing them as happy as they were now. It was like they were ten years younger and falling in love all over again. As cheerful as they'd always been, the Drs. Granger were serious people, a trait they'd passed to their only daughter. But now they were playful and a little silly and a little irresponsible.

And they wanted to stay.

"You were our pride and joy, dear," Hermione's mother had told her, "but you started leaving us for nine months out of the year when you were only eleven. Our time with you was so short, and when you were gone we were so sad. It was hard on our marriage. We're happy here. At least let us be happy while we're missing you with every fiber of our beings."

How could a daughter say no to that, especially a daughter who had betrayed them by wiping their minds and bringing them to Australia in the first place?

"Hermione?" her mother called from her seat in the cockpit. Hermione rose, clutching a new letter from Harry in her fist, and walked back along the boat, bracing herself with one hand as she plunked into the seat between her parents. They were relaxed and slathered in sunscreen, her mother holding a gin and tonic and her father nursing a whiskey on the rocks. Hermione raised an eyebrow. It was barely noon.

"Five o'clock somewhere, love," her father said, brushing a wayward curl behind her right ear. "Now tell us what's in that letter that's got you so worried. You're not going to have a thumb left soon." Hermione blushed. She hadn't even realized she'd been chewing a nail up on the bow.

"It's terrible for the teeth, dear," her mother said, taking the offending hand in her own and squeezing it.

Hermione hated to wake them from their lazy, peaceful afternoon, but she knew it was time to return. The weeks they had stolen away from the world were over. Either her parents accepted her now for everything she was and had to be, or they would have to go on with their pretty little Australian Jack-and-Amy life alone.

"I have to go back."

Her father's face stayed stoic, but her mother's twisted with something like bitterness. "Why?" she asked.

"There's this party tomorrow," she said, blushing as her mother's face grew darker.

"A party."

"Oh, come on, Mum!" Hermione exclaimed. "I'm so very sorry about what I did to you, you know I am! But this thing... It's important. The Minister of Magic is throwing it, it's supposed to mean that the war is over and all is well. But it's not, Mum! The war doesn't end until all the Death Eaters are captured and the captured ones are sentenced and no one cares about a person's blood status anymore and little dentist's daughters don't have to run themselves ragged to prove to the world that they matter too."

Moira Granger ― or perhaps Amy Turner, her parents seemed to go back and forth on what they called each other using some sort of secret silent language Hermione couldn't understand ― sat quietly, listening to her daughter rant, hands folded in her lap, mouth twisted in a prim little frown. When the steam ran out, she looked up, fixing Hermione with a piercing blue-eyed gaze.

"And exactly how will your presence at this party bring about this great and lasting change?" her mother asked quietly. Her mother never spoke loudly, and Hermione had always thought as a child that there was something about straining to catch her words that made them stick with the listener that much more.

Hermione sighed. "It's a start. It shows them that I'm not going to hide my face and my scars while I lick my wounds." She touched her Mudblood arm as she said this, and the thoughtful way her mother bit her bottom lip made Hermione dare to go on. "People are already wondering where I am."

"By people, you mean reporters," her father said.

"Yes, them, but friends and enemies, too. Going to this party... It just seems right. It seems like a way to show the world that this isn't over for me yet. And besides," she pulled out another letter from her pocket, smoothing out the official parchment slowly, "I've been summoned as a witness for a trial the next day. I couldn't stay beyond tomorrow even if the party wasn't happening."

"Whose trial?" her father asked, a spark in his dark eyes. He'd been very curious to know what was to become of the Death Eaters ever since Hermione had told them of Dumbledore's death. ("Why, that's murder!" he'd cried, as if he'd thought magic could only be used to turn toads into teacups and pull rabbits from hats. Just one more reason why Hermione had decided it was best to Obliviate them.)

"I've told you about him. Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

"That horrid little ferret who called you names?"

She laughed a little, but it sounded bitter even to her own ears. Malfoy had done worse than call her names. He'd taken the Mark, he'd let Death Eaters into Hogwarts, he'd stood by as Bellatrix carved him open, he'd been there in the Room of Requirement when Crabbe set the Fiendfyre...

"You're going about it all wrong."

Hermione was immediately pulled from her reverie, and she turned to face her mother once more, putting her patient face on and preparing to explain yet again why these prejudices existed, why they wouldn't just go away.

"Don't give me that know-it-all face of yours, missy," her mother exclaimed, and Hermione recoiled, wincing. That hurt. Worse, her mother knew it hurt. "I've watched you go to this school for seven years and come home crying and silent and defeated. I've watched you grow up and grow tough and learn to take it all and throw it back in their faces, but there was always a price. Us. We were the price. The stupid Muggle parents who could never understand, slowly pushed away and away and then, finally, to keep us out of the way, you sent us to Australia. We could have helped. Maybe not thrown _Stupify_s and _Expelliarmus_es, but we could've done research and made proper English breakfasts with tea and everyone in the Order would've had very nice teeth."

Hermione blinked. She'd never imagined that possibility before, and it was quite a lovely one. For the first time in three long weeks, true remorse coursed through her, alternating icy cold and tingly hot. She felt an ache in her throat and a burning at her eyes, and blinked hard to keep the tears away.

The Drs. Granger were the smartest people she knew. And obviously they'd done their homework the last seven years. The Order would have made use of them and kept them safe. "I ― I should've asked."

"You should have." The fire dropped out of her mother's voice. "You talk of prejudice and brainwashed purebloods, Hermione, but... Aren't you a bit like them after all?"

"Moira, please," Hermione's father said, reaching a hand over his daughter to rest it on his wife's back.

Hermione cleared her throat and looked up. "No, Dad, she's right. How would the two of you like to attend the Ministry of Magic's Victory Ball?"

Her mum ― suddenly cold, quiet Moira had melted into her mum again ― reached out and hugged Hermione for the first time since her memories had been returned.

She was forgiven.

"I would like that very much, dear."

* * *

**A/N: First fic in a long, long time. But I couldn't resist these guys. They wanted to be written about. Expecting to update once a week for now. R&R, please and thank you!**


	2. One: Grim As Ever

**A/N: Thanks for reviewing & following after the last chapter, guys! **

**I expected to have this up a bit sooner, my apologies. I also apologize for the R/H in this chapter. It will go away soon enough, I promise, but the Ron in this story isn't a bad guy, he's just not the right guy. Had to let him have his chance.**

**P.S. Happy belated birthday to our favorite girl, Miss Hermione Granger!**

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It was Ginny who answered the door. Hermione took that to mean she and Harry had gotten back together. He'd said nothing of it in his letters, but then again, he'd taken care to keep them short. London to Australia was a long flight for an owl, and his missives had been much more focused on what was actually going on in Wizarding Britain. Hermione thought if she had to hear about one more thing that Kingsley had said or done, she might petrify the fellow to stop him being so _busy_ all the time.

"Gin!" she cried, opening her arms to her best girlfriend. The redhead shrieked in response and squished Hermione in a tight hug. She was very good at hugs, Ginny Weasley. The girl did nothing by halves when it came to love and hate: it was backbreaking hugs or Bat-Bogey Hexes, with little in between.

"How _are_ you, Mione? How was your visit? We missed― Oh!" She had apparently just noticed the other two people standing on the step of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Slipping out of the hug, she smiled at Hermione's parents. "Dr. and Dr. Granger, right?" she asked, stepping forward, arms open again. "So good to see you."

Moira Granger was not usually the hug sort, but she wrapped her arms around the cheerful redhead with a sort of resigned familiarity, and Hermione had to bite her bottom lip to keep from smiling. Either she had told her parents far too many stories about the Weasleys or the stay down under had been good for defrosting a little bit of that traditional British reserve.

When Ginny had welcomed David as well (he stepped into the hug with decidedly more enthusiasm), she turned and beckoned them through the door. Hermione was just about to remind her parents to keep quiet, but then Ginny leaned up the stairs and shouted, "Boys! Hermione's here!"

There was a thunder of footsteps from upstairs, but otherwise, all was quiet. It was unnerving.

"Gin, what have you guys done with Mrs. Black?"

Ginny grinned, and nodded over towards the curtain behind which the foul-mouthed portrait hung. "She's still there. Get a little closer."

Hermione walked cautiously over towards the portrait, instinctively fearing what her body had been trained to expect: the curtains flying open, the angry old face all in a twist, and then the deafening roar of the nasty dead witch's disapproval. But nothing happened until just before Hermione reached the curtain, when she realized she could hear distant, muffled screaming. It might have been an argument out on the street, except that Hermione thought she could hear the words "filth" and "Mudblood" punctuating the otherwise incomprehensible hollering. Some sort of modified _Muffliato?_

"Impressive," she muttered, reaching out to touch the curtain.

"Dr. Granger!" It was Harry's voice. "Both Dr. Grangers! What a surprise!" Hermione whipped around to see her best friend shaking hands with her parents before turning to smile at her. She threw herself forward into his arms. It was good to see him. She hadn't expected to miss him as much as she had. It had only been three weeks, but still...

"Where's Ron?" she asked after a moment.

"I expect he'll be down any minute," Harry said, throwing her a wink.

She blushed. She had been trying to not think too much about what would happen when she saw Ron again. They had kissed during the Battle of Hogwarts and it had been, well, perfect. She'd been in love with Ron for so long, against her better judgment and despite all the problems along the way. He had been rude and an idiot and she hated watching him eat and he wore socks with holes and he had dated stupid, simpering Lavender Brown. All right, so Lavender wasn't really that bad, but the way they had acted together had been absolutely vile, and it had hurt so much. And then he had left her and Harry, and she had been quite sure it had been all over. She had been miserable, but she had promised herself that she would get over it, get over _him,_ finally, after all this time.

But then he came back.

She had hated him even more for that. Just when she had finally sworn off this weird, aggravating, addicting love and had been starting to heal, he'd come back. Harry needed him there, of course, so she couldn't ask him to leave again, but she had vowed to herself that she could, had to, must go on without loving him.

Well, it turned out that you couldn't just will love to stop.

During the battle, he had been different. Strong, clever, understanding, proactive, loyal, brave, creative, sweet ― looking back, she couldn't be sure he had ever actually been all of those things during the first seven years she had known him. Except in her mind and her heart, where he had always been his best self. But on that day, at Hogwarts, he was everything. So she kissed him. And he kissed her back.

It was the best day and the worst day of her entire life. More people than she could name had died, and the days immediately following the battle were a blur of funerals, firewhiskey, and endless questions. There were no quiet moments for the Golden Trio. She had wrapped up business items one by one, and when they were done, she had given Ron and Harry each a kiss on the cheek and Apparated to Australia.

Hermione cleared her throat awkwardly and turned to her parents. "Mum, Dad, maybe you'd like some tea? Harry and Ginny will take you straight through to the kitchen, and I'll just take your bags upstairs and unshrink them." Everyone nodded assent, and Hermione slowly started up the stairs.

She stopped on the landing outside the door to the room he and Harry had always shared. She suspected they didn't share now, but figured this was as good a place as any to start.

"Ron?" she called, knocking softly on the door.

It swung open immediately to reveal Ron exactly as she remembered him, ears a fiery red and hair all mussed. He was wearing an orange Chudley Cannons shirt that she wished Ginny would tell him looked awful with his hair and a stiff, polite sort of smile.

"Mione," he said, a hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck.

"Hi, Ronald," she whispered, a smile creeping over her face. He looked even more shy and awkward than she felt, and she abruptly decided that there was really only one solution to the problem. She stepped forward quickly until her palms were resting on his chest. Then she looked up at him, at his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard, at his lips, into his beautiful, deep blue eyes. She blinked and he was kissing her, his hands on her back, his lips soft against her own. They broke apart and she leaned her forehead against his chest. She was trembling.

"I wasn't sure you wanted this," he muttered, and she could feel the words vibrate in his chest.

"I do, Ronald," she said firmly. "Very much." She looked up at him again and saw something warm sparkle in his lovely eyes.

"I just... After the battle... You didn't say anything... I didn't..."

She held a finger to his lips. "I know," she said. "I'm sorry." She kissed him again, longer this time, and when it ended, she murmured, "Does that answer your questions?"

He gave a throaty sound, half laugh, half sob, and was leaning in to kiss her again when Ginny's voice flew up the stairs, "Ron! Are you done showing Hermione the changes we've made to the place? Come down and have tea."

"You've made changes?" Hermione asked, puzzled.

Ron laughed for real this time. "Not likely. Harry did manage to shut up Mrs. Black, but other than that the place is grim as ever."

* * *

"So, are the three of you living here alone?" Hermione asked, climbing over the bench to sit at the big table in the kitchen. Ron settled himself opposite her, next to Harry, big goofy grins on both their faces as if they couldn't believe she was actually there. Her parents were sitting next to her, working their way through steaming mugs of tea and scones that actually looked quite good.

Ginny, who was bustling about the stove, scoffed. "As if Mum would let me stay with them," she said, and Hermione figured that was a fairly typical response to a teenage girl wanting to live with her boyfriend, even if they did all live in the same place for nine months out the year. "To be honest, I've been practically on house arrest since you left. Afraid Bellatrix is going to rise from the dead and come hunt me down, I suppose." Hermione felt her arm twinge at the name, but did her best to keep a straight face. Ginny went on, "She lets me out to visit George at the shop."

"He got it up and running barely a day and a half after the funeral," Ron added, "but he doesn't really have many customers and he doesn't do well by himself all day." Hermione nodded. None of that surprised her. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like for George to be without Fred.

"And other than that, she only lets me go to Hogwarts to help with the repairs and come here to make them dinner." The redhead laughed, walking over to the table with another two mugs. "She'd risk just about anything to make sure Harry didn't go hungry."

Hermione chuckled a little, and Harry gave her a playful scowl. She knew he was incredibly fond of Mrs. Weasley, even if he always complained about how much she made him eat when he went to the Burrow.

"So," Harry said, changing the subject completely and addressing himself to the Grangers, "are you back in England for good?"

Hermione intently studied the tea Ginny had just set in front of her. She was sure she knew the answer, but there was still a part of her that hoped.

"No," David said firmly. "We took quite a fancy to our new home. It's a very nice life we lead down there and we plan to keep it a little longer. Hermione is of course welcome whenever she would like to visit." Moira squeezed her hand as he said this and Hermione looked up from her tea, relaxing just a little.

"May I ask why you came all the way back here, then?" Ginny put in smoothly, seating herself on the bench and leaning in to Harry a bit as she sipped her tea.

"Partly to put our affairs in order," David said.

"But mostly," added Moira, "to attend the Victory Ball. Hermione invited us."

Ginny squeaked. "Oh, that's _lovely,"_ she cried. "You're going to really enjoy it. Our friend Kingsley Shacklebolt is the new Minister of Magic and he's really springing for this thing. They've got the atrium in the Ministry all redone and everyone we know is going to be there. You'll get to meet all of our Hogwarts friends and professors. And the orchestra is supposed to be excellent. _Oh!_ Do you have anything to wear?"

Hermione and her mother exchanged looks. Neither of them had anything close to appropriate, and the expressions on their faces were of mirrored mild horror. Ginny was a ferocious shopper.

"Guess you'll have to take us shopping tomorrow, Gin," Hermione muttered resignedly.

"Excellent!" she said, smiling even more broadly than before.

* * *

One by one, everyone went to bed. Ginny stayed the night, after Flooing her mother to tell her that Hermione and her parents had arrived and that they would all be going shopping first thing in the morning. Hermione showed her parents to their room before creeping back down the stairs, pretending not to notice Ginny slipping into Harry's room.

Ron was waiting for her by the fire in the library.

She stepped quietly into the room and shut the door behind her slowly. Almost immediately, he was by her side, running a hand through her curls, wild and tangled from a day of travel. She leaned up and he kissed her again, with more heat this time, his tongue dancing against hers. She let his hands wander for a few minutes, enjoying the feel of his closeness, enjoying that, at last, he wanted her too.

Then, reluctantly, she pulled back.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing," she murmured, smiling at him.

He looked confused, but shrugged it off and reeled her back in. Laughing against his lips, she consented for a few long minutes before pulling back again.

"Ron," she murmured. "This is lovely, and I think..." She paused, and he met her brown eyes, curious. "I think I want us to give being together a go."

"Me too," he agreed, smiling.

"Good," she said. "But right now it not the time." He looked hurt. She felt guilty and reached up to run a consoling hand through his hair. "I'm just tired, and Harry said he's been saving up all my post. I really ought to go through it before I see everyone tomorrow night. Let me just get through the ball and Malfoy's trial and then..." She gazed seductively up at him. "I'm all yours."

"I understand," he said, tugging gently on one of her curls. She was glad he did. This was the Ron she loved, the sweet, understanding one. And so she rewarded him, snogging him thoroughly before sending him off to bed.

Harry had left her post on one of the end tables in the library. She picked up the stack ― frightening, over a foot high ― and started reading.

All sorts of letters, though a good portion of the stack was fan mail. It was odd. She was no stranger to the stuff, but it was unusual for it to be addressed to her. Typically, it was all for Harry. She opened a few of them, but they quickly felt redundant, and she set the rest aside. She had three letters from Luna, who had apparently been stuck in St. Mungo's with little to do except detail the lives of the people on her ward and their misadventures with various mythical magical creatures. There was one from Neville as well, mostly telling her about Luna. On lovely thick paper with handsome official purple seals was the invitation to the Victory Ball. "Formal dress," she muttered to herself, annoyed. Also on thick paper with purple seals was her summons to Malfoy's trial. (So far, it looked like the only one she was going to have to attend. Most of the other Death Eaters that she could have testified against had ended up dead.) There was an employment offer from an experimental potions lab in Wales and an application to the Healer Academy that she was quite sure she hadn't requested. A letter from Fleur inviting her over for tea sometime. And then, finally, on the very bottom, as if Harry had wanted to save it for last (or perhaps not wanted her to see it at all), the letter from Hogwarts.

_Miss Hermione J. Granger_

_The Fifth Bedroom_

_Number 12 Grimmauld Place_

_Islington_

She tore it open, hands shaking almost as much as they had been when she'd received her prefect letter. They hadn't shook at all when she'd gotten her first one, she remembered. She hadn't known what the letter was, after all. She had thought the post address strange, and mightn't have opened it, except that the ink was green and the parchment lovely. It had been a _nice_ piece of mail, and this was too.

The letter inside was less official than she had been expecting. It had the letterhead, of course: _Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts, Order of Merlin,_ etc. (It seemed that everyone was an Order of Merlin these days.) But beneath the letterhead were just a few typed lines:

_Dear Miss Granger,_

_It is our pleasure to inform you that all Seventh Years unable to complete their N.E.W.T.s last term will be able to apply to attend Hogwarts for an Eighth Year. All candidates desiring a place should reply by owl to schedule an interview._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress_

But beneath that, there was another, much longer note in Professor McGonagall's careful hand.

_My dear Miss Granger,_

_I hope that things are progressing well for you in Australia. Mr. Potter told me of what you did for your parents when I saw him recently, and while I could not be more proud, I nearly Apparated to Australia to assist you. I think I would've, except that Potter did not know where you could be found. That's daring magic, reversing a Memory Charm. But I have faith in you, and look forward to hearing of your success._

_I believe that the above offer will be pleasing to you, and that I can expect to see you for an interview this summer? Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley have already informed me that they will not be returning. Both have offers from the Auror Office, and both are more than capable of accepting, and excelling at, such a job without the NEWT level certification. I imagine that you, however, will want to finish things up, and I can only hope that you will not let their decisions influence yours. I have a number of plans for this year. All rather inventive, if I do say so myself, but also the children of necessity, and it would greatly reassure me to have a student such as yourself present to assist in their execution._

_Potter tells me that I can expect to see you at the Victory Ball. I look forward to it. Until then,_

_Yours,_

_Minerva_

Hermione finished the letter to find herself a little giddy with excitement. Professor McGonagall need not have feared. She would be sorry, of course, to be apart from Harry. And she felt bad, leaving Ron alone, after the promise she had just made him. But she was Hermione Granger, bookworm and insufferable know-it-all, and she was going back to Hogwarts.


	3. Two: Fluoride

**Hi guys! Soo... it's been a while. *hides from flying tomatoes* [insert excuse about family moving to a new house here]**

**Read on & (hopefully) enjoy! Bit of a longer chapter. **

* * *

They arrived at the Victory Ball a little on the early side. Harry had insisted.

("If I have to go to this blasted thing, I won't be walking in late like the guest of honor. The Yule Ball was bad enough."

"But you are the guest of honor," Ron said, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"Shut up," Harry muttered, socking him playfully.)

They Apparated straight into the Atrium, an odd experience for Hermione, who had rather expected them to have to flush themselves down toilets. Harry had laughed when she said this, and told her that the flushing thing was a joke on Voldemort's part and "probably the only one he ever made in good taste." The dictator had found the Ministry ineffective, weak, and essentially a waste of time ― worthy only of a good flush down the toilet bowl. "Back in Fudge's day, and Scrimgeour's, Ministry employees could Floo directly from their homes to any of the many fireplaces in the Atrium," Harry had told her and her parents, who had all been eying him with a hungry, curious look he was very familiar with. "Visitors used to go through a lift in a Muggle telephone booth. For tonight, though, Kingsley's shut down the Floo and set it up so that any ball guest on the list can Apparate in. Security reasons. I had you," he had nodded at the Drs. Granger, "added this morning."

Each of the Grangers side-alonged with Harry, Ron, or Ginny. After the trip from Australia with two passengers, Hermione wasn't entirely sure she could manage even the jaunt across London. Transcontinental Apparition was tricky, and tiring.

And so it was that Hermione, dressed to the nines in her midnight blue gown ― it had been a deep scarlet until Ginny had begged her to change it ("It'll clash so terribly with Ron's hair, and you know there will be photographers there.") ― arrived on the arm of Ron Weasley in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic. Ginny had been right. Early as they were, there were still photographers waiting. So she smiled and posed as they took pictures of her and Ron ("Hermione, where have you been?" and "Are you two together?"); her, Harry, and Ron ("Good to see you three together again!"); Harry and Ginny ("The Wizarding World's favorite couple!" and "Ron, how's it feel that your best mate is dating your little sister?"); and finally, once they figured out who they were, Hermione and her parents ("So these are the famous Grangers!" and "Muggles at the Victory Ball! That's... quite charming!"). Hermione brushed off all the questions with smiles and nods, but Ron was quick to inform the press that they were indeed together, and she could only be grateful that Rita Skeeter was not among them. The beetle was back to writing small, salacious pieces, but Kingsley had barred her from the event at Harry's request.

Finally, Harry made their excuses to the media. "Got to show the Grangers around. Haven't been here before, obviously." He began to do just that, pointing Ron and David over to the bar. Ginny took Moira on one arm and Hermione on the other, leading them off towards the plinth upon which several unsatisfactory golden statues had stood over the years. It was currently empty, but stairs had been installed for the evening and the plinth expanded, so that it served as sort of a balcony over the main floor.

"This room is remarkable," Moira said, squeezing Hermione's hand. And Hermione, looking up, supposed it was. Crowded with very unpleasant memories, but still quite a beautiful place to hold a party. The Atrium was a large, long room, with high, arched ceilings and sleek columns. The ceiling was a deep blue, patterned with golden designs that appeared to be constellations, and the floors, walls, and columns were made of dark, well-polished wood. All along the Atrium, from the end where they had entered to the end with the golden gates leading to the lifts, the walls were lined with marble fireplaces. Though the Floo wasn't operational, cheerful fires danced in every grate, several of which were surrounded by arrangements of cozy-looking leather couches. The room, as always, seemed to go on and on, but tonight it was lit by thousands of floating white candles.

"There's one for every person who died during the war," Ginny murmured. "Muggle and magical alike."

"That's quite nice," Moira said.

As they stood there, the orchestra, which was situated directly in front of the golden gates, struck up a pleasant melody. Harry came up behind them, levitating three glasses of champagne. Once the girls had each taken one from him, he stood, hands on Ginny's shoulders, looking out at all the candles.

A few minutes later, the grand clock along one wall struck eight, and the end of the Atrium where they had entered was punctured by a series of pops. They all turned to look, and Ginny laughed at the sight of well-dressed witches and wizards stumbling into each other. Hermione grinned, too. It was funny, all those poor people trying to make a good impression, arrive right on time ― and instead they ended up crashing into dozens of others who had the exact same idea.

"I think I see Neville," Ginny said, pointing to a tall young man wearing dark violet dress robes. He was a little off-balance, and Hermione smiled as she caught sight of his proud grandmother standing next to him, perfectly steady, her mouth set in a thin, disapproving line.

"I'm so glad Mrs. Longbottom made it through safe and sound," she said, turning to look at Harry.

"Takes a lot to defeat that lady," he said with a shrug, his green eyes sparkling. "She's tough."

"Let's go say hello," Hermione said. "Mum? Would you like to join us?"

Moira nodded, breaking away from her scrutiny of the magical orchestra to smile at her daughter. "Yes, of course. Let me just collect your father and then we'll come find you."

Harry, Hermione, and Ginny made their way down from the platform and across the room. It was more crowded now over by the Apparition point, and Ginny grasped Hermione's empty hand so that they wouldn't lose her as they wove in and out of a sea of dress robes and gowns. Hermione knew more than a few of the people present and had to pause occasionally for a smile and a quick word of greeting before the redhead tugged her onward. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley appeared and waved them over, but Hermione had barely enough time to mutter a blushing hello and steal a hug from each of them before Ginny sighed in exasperation and they were off again.

When they reached Neville, he welcomed them with enthusiastic hugs. His grandmother was more reserved, but Hermione could clearly tell that she was pleased to see them (though she suspected a good portion of said pleasure probably resulted from the knowledge that Nev had made the right sort of friends and a bit of a name for himself). Mrs. Longbottom excused herself fairly quickly, claiming to have spotted an old friend in the crowd, and the four teens were left to talk freely about their summers. Hermione briefly mentioned her trip to Australia before Neville launched into a long story about a three-day expedition Luna had taken him on after she'd been let out of the hospital. They had been looking for a rare sort of insect.

"And normally, of course," Neville said eagerly, "I wouldn't be too keen on one of Luna's expeditions." Hermione didn't blame him. "But she said she'd thought to invite me because the nightmare cricket only feeds on this really amazing orchid that blooms in just the third week of June and well, really, how could I resist?" If Hermione never had to go camping again, she would be very content. But she knew how much Neville loved plants, so she pasted a curious look on her face and kept listening. "And she was going to go by herself if I didn't go with her..."

"Seriously?" It was Harry who had interrupted. Luna was fiercely independent, so this news didn't really surprise Hermione at all, but she could definitely see Harry's point. Even though the Aurors thought they had rounded up most of the Death Eaters, you could really never be sure. "I'm glad you went with her, Nev. Nobody should be out in the woods alone right now."

Neville blushed under Harry's approbation. "We had fun," he said shyly. "Didn't find anything, though."

"Are you telling them about the nightmare crickets, Neville?" Luna's dreamy voice asked from behind Hermione. "Oh, and Hermione, I think these belong to you."

She, Harry, and Ginny whipped around to see Luna, accompanied by Ron and the Drs. Granger, all three of whom looked rather bemused, the general side-effect of unexpected exposure to Luna. The girl herself was decked out in a rather extraordinary outfit: a yellow dress made of a strangely fuzzy material, tied at the waist with a faded denim sash. A circlet of woven Queen Anne's lace topped her blond curls, the little white flowers slightly sagged from dehydration. From her ears dangled pearly triangular charms that Hermione suspected were shark's teeth, and around her neck she wore a necklace made of buttons. Her smile, though, was broad, the dark circles under her eyes were gone, and she'd put on at least five pounds since Hermione had seen her at the Battle of Hogwarts, so that the hollows in her cheeks from weeks of captivity were much less prominent.

"It's lovely to see you," Hermione said, stepping forward to embrace her, well, friend. After all this time, that had to be what they were, even though she would give nearly anything to avoid a protracted conversation with the girl. "And, yes, they do. Mum, Dad, you've met Luna?" They nodded, and she pulled Neville forward to introduce him instead. "This is Neville Longbottom. Nev, these are my parents, Drs. David and Moira Granger."

Neville stumbled over some platitudes and her parents ― much more gracefully ― returned them. Ron gave her hand a quick, affectionate squeeze, and then he and Harry pulled Neville away to go chat with Dean Thomas and Oliver Wood, whom they had just spotted across the hall. There was a moment's silence, which Ginny filled with a compliment to Luna's earrings. "My brother Bill would love them," she added, and Luna smiled distantly, eyes intent on the candles floating above them. Hermione felt it coming a moment before the girl opened her mouth, and she wracked her mind for something to say, but―

"Did you know there are creatures called gimblypunks that inhabit live flames?" Luna asked her parents. Hermione bit down hard on the side of her tongue to keep from sighing.

"No, we didn't," Moira said brightly, looking accusingly at Hermione as if that should have been the first thing that she'd told them when they'd arrived that night. She shrugged apologetically, not having the heart to fight with Luna tonight. "But then again, we're Muggles."

"Oh, well I'd almost expect Muggles to know they're there," Luna said knowledgeably. "They're rather loud little things during the mating season."

Hermione found herself drifting off as Luna continued to tell her parents all about the gimblypunks. "Hundreds in every one of these candles, I promise you." Her gaze fell around the room and she sipped what was left of her champagne. Against her will, she was enjoying the event. It was so nice to see everyone dressed up in bright colors and just far enough into their first drinks to actually be a little cheerful again. They had spent so much time lingering over the bad things, the funerals and the trials and the damage to be repaired, that she really doubted many people had stopped to be grateful for the friends and family who were still alive. A little smile stole across her lips. She felt fizzy, and it wasn't just the champagne. For the first time in a long time, Hermione Granger was happy.

Right on cue, a blonde in an ice blue dress ducked around someone tall and locked eyes with her. The smile dropped away, and Hermione stood up straight, readying herself to take on the witch. And then, to Hermione's great surprise, Narcissa Malfoy smiled.

She blinked, taken aback. She could only ever remember Mrs. Malfoy wearing three expressions: poorly veiled disgust, stiffly concealed fear, and blind terror. But a smile? And at a Mudblood, no less? The recently pardoned witch ― whom Hermione had desperately hoped was _not_ on the guest list ― took advantage of her stunned silence to approach, one hand extended.

"Miss Granger," Mrs. Malfoy said, her voice coolly polite.

"Mrs. Malfoy," she replied, collecting herself enough to keep from stuttering. Unfortunately, she was not as quick to control her hands, and her empty champagne glass had moved from right to left, her right extending towards the pureblooded witch before she could remember that the last time she had meet this woman's eyes, she had been having her arm carved open by her sister in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor. Hermione shook the woman's hand briefly, before dropping it as if she had been stung. A snippy reply came to her almost immediately: "It's so nice to see you outside the Manor."

Mrs. Malfoy's smile flickered only momentarily, before her features smoothed out and she murmured, "I actually wanted to offer my―"

"Hermione, dear," her mother said, and Hermione realized belatedly that the conversation about gimblypunks had come to an end, "who is your friend?"

She looked back at them. Her parents were smiling, but Luna had gone an unattractive, pasty color and Ginny looked murderous.

"Gin," she said, nudging her younger friend. "Why don't you take Luna over to get a ginger beer? She looks a bit peaky." Ginny nodded, and the two girls turned and vanished into the crowd.

Hermione turned back to her parents and Mrs. Malfoy. "Mum, Dad, this is Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy, Drs. David and Moira Granger."

Her father frowned like he was trying to remember something important, but her mother smiled kindly and extended a hand. "Your dress is absolutely stunning, Narcissa," Moira said, and Hermione had to choke down a laugh as Mrs. Malfoy's face melted into a confused grimace.

It was now Mrs. Malfoy who looked uncertain what to do with her hands. "I― Thank you." The smoothness of her tone was gone. "You're Muggles."

Hermione laughed out loud this time and Mrs. Malfoy flushed as Moira cocked an eyebrow. "Indeed," she murmured, unimpressed, and to Hermione's great surprise, Narcissa Malfoy turned and fled.

Someone gave a snort of amusement behind her and Hermione turned around to see a familiar blond dressed in black and silver dress robes, his rather pointy face twisted into a smirk as he stared off after his mother. He was gaunter than she had ever seen him and paler too, with his hair longish and loose, as if he hadn't had access to scissors or his much-beloved hair gel in a while. But that made sense. He was supposed to be in Azkaban, awaiting trial.

"Malfoy."

"Granger." He nodded to her, barely making eye contact before glancing behind her at her parents. "Granger's parents."

"You're the one on trial tomorrow," her father said, his face clearing as he finally made the connection. Draco Malfoy shrugged as if he could care less about silly things like trials, but the lines at the corners of his mouth deepened, making him look even wearier than before.

"What are you doing here?" she finally sputtered out.

"Out on bail," he said lazily, leaning against one of the many columns that lined the Atrium, gazing over her head at the crowd of dancing witches and wizards. "They weren't going to let me, but Mother made a special request." He snorted and looked down at her. "Speaking of, what did you do to her? She was trying to be on her best behavior tonight."

Now it was Hermione's turn to shrug. "Guess she's allergic to Muggles," she sniped.

Malfoy nodded as if that made perfect sense, eyeing her parents again. "I should probably keep away, too, then. Might be hereditary." For half a second, Hermione almost laughed. But then she caught herself. Draco Malfoy wasn't funny. Perhaps he hadn't caught her sarcasm? She felt her face melt into a scowl.

"It's not like we asked you over to chat."

"Fair enough," he said, pushing off the column and walking away. "Goodbye, Muggle Grangers," he called over his shoulder, waving a careless hand.

Hermione watched him go for a moment.

"What an odd family," her mum muttered, and Hermione was inclined to agree.

* * *

The evening passed pleasantly enough. Hermione ran into Professor McGonagall shortly after her encounter with the Malfoys and stopped for a chat, introducing her parents and agreeing that she would definitely like one of those Eighth Year interviews. Kingsley Shacklebolt joined them shortly thereafter, telling her how happy he was to see her back in the UK and quickly wrapping her parents up in an in-depth discussion about Muggle and Muggle-born rights. She left them to it ("Go on, love, we'll be quite all right."), and started to wander, looking for Luna and Ginny.

There were more familiar faces along the way, and she had to stop and chat with everyone from Ministry officials to professors, Quidditch players to Percy Weasley's ex-girlfriend, Penelope Clearwater (Hermione talked with her awkwardly, half wanting to apologize for using her name with the Snatchers). She said hello to a handful of Ravenclaws, got a bone-crushing hug from an overenthusiastic and horribly dressed Hagrid, threw a smile at Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott when they waved, ducked around Daphne Greengrass and her smaller, blonder sister, and was finally cornered by Slughorn, who insisted she share some thoughts with him about the potions curriculum.

It was therefore quite a while before Ron and Harry found her and dragged her over to a corner full of sleek, squishy couches, where they, Ginny, Neville, George, Oliver Wood, Luna, Dean Thomas, and ― oddly enough ― Percy were sitting before a crackling fire and chatting over a round of butterbeers. She was glad to see that Luna had regained her color and was happily sipping on a ginger beer and munching orange slices. Part of her knew that they were really expected to mingle and socialize, but there was something very pleasant about their cozy Gryffindor corner. A little Exploding Snap and some Cauldron Cakes and she might have believed they were back on the Hogwarts Express.

She was biting her bottom lip and staring at the flames dancing in their fireplace, thinking about what it would feel like to return to Hogwarts without her two best friends, when Ron sat down next to her and slung an arm over her shoulder. She smiled at him, grateful that he knew her well enough to pick up on her moods so quickly, and he reached his other hand over to squeeze her own. He leaned down to whisper in her ear, "I know you want this all to be sort of low-key, but I was wondering if maybe you'd like to dance." And that was so very un-Ronald that even though she was quite enjoying her seat and she knew he was a terrible dancer, she squeezed his hand back and said yes.

The orchestra had livened things up after the first hour and was playing an upbeat mix of jazz and wizarding pop favorites. She ended up dancing a lot. Ron seemed to be eagerly overcompensating for the Yule Ball and rather keen to prove that he wasn't going to be his usual jealous, hotheaded self. Harry asked her to dance several times, and after the firewhiskey started going around, George, Neville, and Dean all dragged her and Ginny to the dance floor. Time sort of whooshed by, and suddenly it was nearly one, and everything felt a little fuzzy and nostalgic and old-fashioned, the pit of her stomach warm and jumpy with pleasant anticipation like it was Christmas Eve or her birthday.

Ron kissed her on one of their little Gryffindor sofas, and George gave a whooping catcall like he would've if Fred had still been alive. Harry was out on the floor with Luna, waving his hands and walking in circles (a dance that Luna promised would ward off the nipfiends), but Ginny was around to witness the kiss ― and proceeded to take the mickey for the next twenty minutes.

Finally getting exasperated, Hermione stood up with what was left of her last butterbeer and stalked off, claiming that she needed the loo. She was about to hunt down her parents when a hand reached out to grasp her wrist. She looked up to see Harry wearing a rather worried expression, the Minister of Magic at his elbow.

"Harry?" she asked. "Kingsley? What's wrong?"

The two men did their best to smooth their expressions as Harry started to explain. "We were thinking it might be nearly time for you and me and Ron and your parents to leave." He put an unintentional emphasis on the word _parents_ and Hermione quickly understood what this was all about.

"Are they causing a problem?" she asked, her voice a little cold.

"No, no, of course not," Kingsley said, mustering up his trademark grin: the warm yet political smile that kept the Wizarding World safe and on an even keel. "I had a lovely time talking to them, and they're of course the picture of decorum and pleasantness. It's just..."

"It's getting late, and tongues are getting loose," Harry jumped in. "We don't think they should have to listen to prejudiced comments, even the most well-meaning ones."

Hermione was reminded immediately of the very first time her parents had met Mr. Weasley. If she recalled correctly, he'd spent three-quarters of an hour trying to get them to explain electronic locking mechanisms and hadn't seemed to really comprehend _why_ they couldn't do so with both the precision of an electrical engineer and the patience of a primary school teacher.

She took the point. "I'll just go find them then, yeah?" she said. Harry nodded, Kingsley shook her hand warmly, and she headed off towards the platform to try to get a better view.

Ten minutes later, she found them near the orchestra, talking loudly to a certain blond ferret. She felt a lump in her throat. It seemed Harry and Kingsley might have been right.

"Fluoride, you say?" Malfoy clarified loudly, his back to Hermione, a half-empty drink in his hand.

"Yes," Moira said eagerly, hands moving rapidly as she waxed lyrical about teeth. As she spoke, David spotted Hermione over Malfoy's shoulder and gave her an amused look, his eyebrows waggling. "Absolutely essential to maintaining enamel strength throughout a lifetime. And wizards live longer than Muggles, don't they, so I'd say it's even more essential. Honestly, I was quite relieved when Hermione told me that wizards used toothbrushes. I'd been afraid there would be some sort of spell you lot all used, and David and I tested the water our first time in Diagon Alley and it's absolutely _not_ fluoridated like Muggle water, so I had been quite concerned―"

Malfoy interrupted her here, and Hermione had rather expected some snarky putdown, so she was quite surprised to hear him speak with nearly as much passion as her mother, his words more than a little slurred. "Well, Doctor ― Moira, was it? ― that's just the thing. See, I imagine a lot of wizards do use those Muggle teeth-brushes, but the old Slytherin pureblood families, we don't. Seems dumb, a bit of goop on a piece on fuzz on a stick, you know? A good old _Scourgify_ does the trick, or so we'd always thought."

"I really doubt it does," Moira continued firmly, "although I confess I've often wondered... but as a general rule, Hermione doesn't like to use charms on us." Her face clouded over, and Hermione knew her mother had suddenly remembered the Memory Charm and Australia and who she was talking to.

"I can cast one for you," Malfoy said helpfully (Hermione nearly choked on her butterbeer), reaching up his sleeve for his wand.

Hermione took three quick steps forward, awkwardly reaching for her own wand and wishing she wasn't holding the butterbeer bottle, but her mother was already making excuses. "Don't worry about it," Malfoy said, speaking over them and holding out his empty palms. "I'd nearly forgotten. Out on bail. No wand." He lifted one shoulder in a slow shrug, and Hermione stopped her frantic search for her wand. "Maybe I should buy one of your teeth-brushes."

Hermione felt herself blush immediately and, sure as clockwork, her mother reached into her bag, rummaging for one of the new toothbrushes she always kept on hand. Moira frowned, though, and Hermione realized with a bit of relief that her mother was going to come up empty-handed as well.

"Sorry," she said. "Thought I might have one, but... this is Amy's handbag..."

"We've been on holiday," David interrupted smoothly. "And Moira had to borrow a bag from a friend for the event tonight." Moira shot him a grateful smile, and Hermione breathed a small sigh of relief. She really didn't want to have to explain the Australia fiasco to Malfoy, of all people.

"Mum?" she called softly. "Dad?"

Her mother looked up, and Hermione was surprised to see an expression rather like guilt cross her face. "Sweetheart!" she cried, and it was all of a sudden very clear that Moira was drunk. Malfoy swung round, looking startled, before dropping his eyes to his drink and fixing a scowl on his face.

"Hullo, Mum," she said, smiling. "If you've finished your chat, I think Harry and Ron are very nearly ready to go."

Moira looked up at Malfoy, considering whether or not the chat was indeed finished. "Yes," she decided firmly, "I think this was a good introduction to dental hygiene."

"Thank you, Dr. Moira," Malfoy said, recovering himself enough to extend his hand to shake her mother's. Hermione gaped a little, but did her best to hide it. "It's been a pleasure. I've never met a Muggle properly before tonight, you know."

"Well, now you have," her mum said, nodding and then giving a hiccup.

Hermione shook her head, laughing a little. Who would have thought that drunk Malfoy could be so sensible? She wrapped her arm through her mum's, her dad supporting Moira on the other side, and the three of them started to make their way over to the group of Gryffindors gathered in the corner.

"See you tomorrow, Malfoy," she called over her shoulder, and when she looked back, she was surprised to see his glass lifted to her in acknowledgement.

* * *

**Thanks for the read! Please consider reviewing, I'd love to hear what your thoughts are thus far. And I can promise that we will have the next chapter up much sooner than this one was.**


	4. Three: Twas the Night Before

**Thanks so much for the reviews, favorites, and follows!**

**Here's a chapter to get us inside our characters' heads before we go to trial.**

* * *

There was a knock at the door.

It was just after the ball and Hermione was lounging on her stomach on her bed, feet in the air, nose buried in a book she'd seen in the Number 12 library several years ago and been puzzled by: _The Introduction of Muggle Invention to the Magical Repertoire._ It was all about clever things Muggles came up with and how wizards later either adapted the technology to work in a magical environment or invented spells based on the Muggle concept. The chapter she was currently reading was about places of magical saturation, like Hogwarts, where Muggle technology didn't work. Fascinating stuff, but she couldn't quite figure out how it had come to be in the library of the Blacks. The portrait of Walburga Black downstairs would probably call her a liar (and a filthy Mudblood) if she dared to ask, though, so her curiosity on that issue was likely to be unresolved.

"Hermione?" Harry called softly through the door. It was rather late, and she'd assumed everyone would be long since in bed. But then again, Harry probably didn't sleep as much as the rest of them. She knew he still had nightmares, and there were often dark circles under his eyes.

"Come in, Harry," she called back, setting the book aside and sitting up. She folded her legs beneath her and brushed her hair back from her face.

The door squeaked slightly as it opened and Harry came inside. He shut it softly behind him, and Hermione patted a spot next to her on the bed. "Hey," he said softly, plopping down beside her.

"Did you finally get rid of Gin?" Hermione teased, nudging her best friend gently with her elbow.

His face fell. They had left the redhead at the Ministry when they'd headed back to Grimmauld Place, as she had told them Mrs. Weasley was insisting she come home and spend the night at the Burrow. But they had barely made it past the Mrs. Black's portrait, Kreacher taking their cloaks along the way (he hadn't seemed too happy about this job once he'd realized that the Drs. Granger were Muggles, but Harry had ordered him to "be polite to guests,"allowing him to mutter as much as he liked when they were out of earshot), when she'd Apparated straight into the kitchen, her face as red as her hair.

"You didn't say goodbye!" she'd hollered in a tone that would have either scandalized Mrs. Weasley or made her proud. Harry had hurried over, speaking to her in urgent, hushed tones, while the rest of them attributed the outburst to her temper and wearily climbed the stairs. Hermione had kissed her parents goodnight on the second landing, promising to take them back to Australia the next afternoon, and then kissed Ron rather more thoroughly on the third landing. She'd been reading ever since. The expression Harry was wearing now, however, made her suspect that there was more wrong than she and Ron had originally thought. The corners of his mouth were turned down and his forehead was crinkled in concern.

"I think..." Harry said, speaking slowly, his eyes on her scarred arm. (Hermione tucked it against her side. She'd forgotten that she was wearing a tank top.) "I think some of us are still finding our battle-scars."

Hermione cocked her head to the side, surprised by his answer. "How so?" she asked. Shrugging, Harry turned away from her. She thought he was about to leave, and rested a hand on his shoulder, tugging him back until he surrendered, flopping back onto her pillow, one arm tucked behind his head. She leaned over, meeting his eyes.

"You have that," he said finally, nodding up towards her arm. "I have this." He reached up with his right hand to rub his fingers over his scar. "And the nightmares. I have those, too. Ron has his regrets. Ginny... I think she's afraid." He shrugged again, or the closest thing he could do to a shrug while lying down. "I broke up with her last year to protect her."

"You did protect her," Hermione said fiercely, running a hand over her friend's messy hair.

"Oh, I know," Harry said. "She's alive and she wasn't tortured or—" He stumbled over the word _rape_ and Hermione whispered it for him. "And the part of her that's seventeen and brilliant and sharp-tongued gets all that and likes to tease me about how I'm lucky she took me back. But the part of her that's eleven, the part of her that loved Tom and almost died when he betrayed her? That part is just waiting for me to up and leave again."

The silence sort of rang and Hermione wanted very badly to have something clever to say. What was the point of being a know-it-all if, when it mattered, you were struck just as dumb as everyone else? But Harry knew Ginny like spark knew fire, and he'd said all there was to say.

"You won't, though," she managed at last.

"Of course I won't."

And that was love, Hermione thought. That's all there was to it.

The quiet stretched on again, each of the friends lost in thought. They were good at being quiet together. It was a skill they had perfected on the run, while Ron was gone. There had been so little to do and at first they had talked and talked as if speaking could fill the holes. Eventually, they had stopped. That had been better. The holes hadn't vanished, but they'd kind of gone numb.

Hermione felt herself sort of drifting away into a quieter place than her mind had been in weeks, and she felt a warmth in her stomach swell up for one Harry James Potter. She loved Ron and she loved her parents and she loved Ginny, but Harry had always been and always would be her best friend.

She felt his warm hand settle on top of hers, which was resting affectionately in his messy mop of hair.

"This isn't why I came to talk to you," Harry said sleepily. She blinked in surprise. She had almost forgotten that he had sought her out at a completely unreasonable time of night. He sat up slowly and turned to face her, green eyes serious. His gaze flicked to her arm (again), she pressed it tightly against her side (again), and finally, bluntly, he said, "Look, we need to talk about Malfoy."

* * *

Draco Malfoy sat out in the garden at Malfoy Manor, watching Cassiopeia arc above his head. He liked that constellation, even more than he liked his own. Draco looked like someone had wanted to make a constellation and had sort of picked out stars that fit. Cassiopeia looked like she had always been there, a determined zigzag that someone had finally given a name.

He heard quiet footsteps padding down the garden path — his senses were still hypersensitive from two years of living with an army of Death Eaters — and whipped around, his hand reaching futilely, again, for his wand.

It was just his mother, wrapped in her periwinkle dressing gown, her long blond locks brushed out and gleaming in the moonlight. He forced a smile for her.

"How are you?" she asked quietly, standing stiffly behind him.

"Sober again," he said. "Unfortunately."

"Draco," she admonished gently. She had never approved of alcohol, and certainly not of alcohol as a form of escape.

He sighed, leaning back against her knees. "I just don't want to remember that this is my last night to see the stars. Starting tomorrow, I'll be a permanent resident of Azkaban."

"You don't know that." Her voice was sharp as her hand wound itself into his much-longer-than-normal hair.

"Don't be a fool, Mother," he said, his own voice more acidic than he'd have liked. "Potter cleared your name because he owed you. You saved his life and he spared yours. Fair is fair, after all, and our brave and blustering Gryffindors are nothing if not fair." He could feel his mouth twisting into a sneer as he spoke.

Narcissa's fingers tightened in his hair until her grip was almost painful. "He saved your life in that- that room. He owed me nothing."

"And he owes me even less."

"Draco!" She seemed frustrated, but he wouldn't give in. She might be determined to be optimistic, but he refused to have hope where none existed.

"Mother?"

"What about the girl?" his mother asked, her voice rising higher and higher as she grew more desperate. Her nails dug into his scalp and he winced, pulling gently away. "They say she came back into the country to testify. The Mudblood."

A hollow laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "Really, Mother?" he said. "Even as you're hoping the girl will clear my name, you _still _call her Mudblood?" There was silence behind him, and he knew that if his mother was anything less than a Black and a Malfoy, he might look up to find her blushing.

"Granger and I don't get along." He paused. Everything from earlier was a little fuzzy. But not that fuzzy. He had talked to her parents, her Muggle parents. Nevertheless, "She won't help. You know that."

His mother sobbed.

It was a weird sort of pathetic noise, and for a moment, Draco found himself disgusted. If he could hold himself together, why couldn't she? Almost as quickly, though, he felt a surge of affection. She was his _mother, _after all, and she had never shown how much that really meant to her more than in the last few months. It meant more than the Dark Lord, more than his father, more than pure blood and prejudice and winning. More than her own life.

He pulled himself to his feet and wrapped his arms around her. She drew back quickly — Malfoys didn't _do_ hugs — and then gave a wry sort of laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. He smirked back, keeping his distance.

With a final sniff, she collected herself. "You're right, of course," she said. "I tried to talk to her tonight, but she wasn't having it."

Draco gave a lazy, one-shouldered shrug. "I don't really blame her. But don't worry about it all too much. I've half a mind to plead guilty tomorrow, anyways, just to get it over with more quickly. I don't want to have to relive the last few years again."

She slapped him.

"No." Her voice was a low hiss now. "You must promise me not to do that." He rubbed his cheek gingerly. "You must give the jury at least a chance to take pity on you."

His jaw clenched. "I don't want their pity, Mother. I wasn't some poor misled sap. I believed with all my heart that witches and wizards of Muggle descent were lesser than those of the great pureblood tradition. Hell, I still believe it."

"You should take their pity if they're willing to give it," she snapped. "Swallow your pride and think like a Slytherin. If you're cleared, you'll have your whole life to save face."

A pause, then,

"But what if I deserve a life in Azkaban?"

She leaned in, pressing her cheek against his for the briefest of moments, to whisper in his ear. "You don't, my darling."

But that's what mothers were supposed to say.

Draco had plenty of sharp replies at the ready, but he found himself unable to let them fly. There was some sort of painful lump that had grown in his throat and it was making speech difficult. His mother turned and walked away, and he settled himself back on the ground, looking up at the cold, clear sky, the word _fluoride_ on his lips.

There was no way he was going to get any sleep tonight.

* * *

They had breakfast at the Burrow. Ginny had begged them to.

Hermione had barely gotten any sleep. She and Harry had talked well into the night, and when he left, she'd found herself pacing. It was a habit she had often tried to cure herself of, but for some reason, her brain just worked better when she was moving. And last night, she had needed to think. Good and long and hard.

It was loud at the Burrow, as always. Not that it was a large crowd: just Ginny, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Hermione's parents, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione. But something about being at the Burrow made people louder. It was a phenomenon Hermione had often observed, and it was one of her favorite things about staying there. Ginny was currently telling a story to Ron from the opposite end of the table, even as Mrs. Weasley hollered to Mr. Weasley to lend a hand and Harry laughed infectiously at something her dad was saying. Even her mum was talkative and smiling, and Hermione suspected that someone had offered her a hangover potion.

Sometimes, alone at night with her thoughts in the girl's dormitory, Hermione had imagined holidays and Sunday dinners here, years down the line. A gaggle of children: a whole army of pranksters and a handful of blonds with French accents and a little redheaded girl with Lily Evans's eyes. A boy, with wild brown hair and Weasley freckles.

Not that she wanted to get married right away. But this did seem like the perfect place to grow up.

"Nervous, Mione?"

"Hmm?" she murmured, turning to look at Ron. He was grinning at her, a knowing look smeared across his face. "Nervous about what?"

Ron's grin slipped. "Y'know, the trial? It starts in—" he checked his watch "—45 minutes."

"Oh!" She reached for her tea and gulped down a few hot mouthfuls, shaking her head at Ron. "Not nerves. Just thinking too much."

"You?" Ginny teased, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. "Never."

"It won't be bad," Ron said, squeezing her hand affectionately. "You just get up there and tell them why the ugly bastard ought to rot."

She spluttered over her tea. Ron patted her heavily on the back, and she recovered her breath in thick wheezing gasps. "Right," she muttered.

"Sorry," her mum said, her voice strangely perky. (She'd _definitely_ had a hangover potion, Hermione decided.) "But isn't it a bit more complicated than that? Doesn't the poor boy get a defense?"

Mr. Weasley looked on with interest, but Mrs. Weasley just set the egg casserole down on the table and took her seat next to Ron. Ginny and Harry tucked in enthusiastically, ducking gracefully out of the conversation.

Ron gave Moira a strange look, as if he hadn't quite understood the question. He laughed uneasily, squeezing Hermione's hand again, and said, "We're talking about Draco Malfoy, Dr. Granger. No one's going to speak to his defense."

Moira looked outraged, and Hermione spoke up hurriedly before her mum could start a heated debate with her — should she call him her boyfriend?

"Wizarding trials are a bit different, Mum," she said. "We have a potion called Veritaserum, which is always used on suspects long before the trial occurs."

"He confessed," Ron said with a shrug. "He's guilty."

Her mum frowned. "In the Muggle world, we don't compel people to testify against themselves."

"It's literally truth serum?" her dad said, talking over the end of Moira's complaint.

(Mr. Weasley was now watching the conversation as if it were a tennis match.)

Hermione nodded at her dad, and went on. "The facts are known. Draco Malfoy _did_ do all the things he was accused of, or else he wouldn't be accused of them. But Veritaserum is very black-and-white, no room for motive or subjectivity or opinion." She shrugged, slipping her hand out of Ron's. "The people who come forward at the trial get to tell the story the way they see it."

"All in the name of justice, I suppose," Moira said with a snort, and David rested a hand on her shoulder. Hermione could tell from the creases in his forehead that he agreed with her mum.

Ron opened his mouth again, and Hermione gritted her teeth. Why couldn't he just be quiet? Her mum was never going to back down on this issue.

"He deserves Azkaban."

Mrs. Weasley sighed, and rapped Ron over the head with a wooden spoon. "Enough, Ronald." Ginny's mouth hung open rather unattractively at her brother's bitter tone of voice, and Harry was awkwardly pushing his food around.

The redhead didn't blush, even under everyone's scrutiny. "That's what the witnesses are going to say," he muttered vindictively.

"The point," Harry said loudly, finally looking up from his plateful of eggs, "is that it only takes one witness, the right witness, to change that verdict." He shot Hermione a quick look, but she avoided his eyes.

Moira sat back, her head cocked to the side, considering that.

"Do you think," Hermione's dad began, a bit timidly, "we could come along?" He nudged Moira gently, and then looked back up at his daughter. "It might help us understand better."

"If you're sure you'd like to," Hermione said, fixing her mum with a stern gaze. "Just be prepared."

"For what?" Moira asked.

"The worst." She had told them about the Dementors after her third year, back when the three of them had talked about everything. And she'd told them about the Kiss.

Muggles or not, they knew what was at stake.


End file.
